A NATION CHALLENGED: THE POSTAL WORKERS

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Published: October 24, 2001

DENVER, Oct. 23—
To protect themselves against anthrax and other toxic substances inside letters and packages, postal workers are now receiving gloves, masks and training sessions to teach them how to identify and isolate suspicious items.

Yet many workers and postal union leaders across the country, said today that the United States Postal Service's latest efforts to safeguard workers' health were still not enough, given the lethal possibilities that can arise from exposure to anthrax, which the authorities in Washington said caused the deaths of two postal workers on Monday.

Some postal workers complained that their superiors still had not purchased gloves and masks. Others said the training sessions lasted only a few minutes and did not convey enough information.

Paul J. Mendrick, president of the Denver Metro Area Postal Workers Union, said it was about time that people operating high-speed sorting machines were allowed to wear the same protective gloves that other postal workers were being encouraged to wear. Workers on the sorting machines are prohibited from using the gloves because they might get caught in the equipment. Some experts think such machinery may have shaken anthrax spores from envelopes in the Washington cases.

''These people really need the protection,'' Mr. Mendrick said. ''The machines they operate sort 30,000, 35,000 pieces of mail in an hour. There's the potential of anthrax in any one of those envelopes.''

William Smith, president of the New York postal union, called for the closing of the Morgan Mail Processing Facility in Manhattan, which receives mail from the center in Trenton that handled anthrax-contaminated letters mailed to Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Tom Brokaw of NBC News and The New York Post.

Postal officials said that they were doing everything possible to insure the health of their employees and that new ideas were discussed every day as anxieties over anthrax exposure increase. Over all, three people have died and more than 40 have been exposed.

Many postal workers now say they perform their jobs with a higher degree of trepidation.

''I'm scared to death,'' said a postal worker at the back door of the main post office in Sacramento. Smoking nervously, She said a suspicious letter had been found this morning in a sorting area. Yellow tape was quickly wrapped around a machine. The worker said she had been told not to talk to anyone and would not give her name.

The response at a post office in an affluent section of Little Rock, Ark., was the same. A clerk leaned across the counter and whispered, ''Scared? Damn right, I am. Aren't you?'' He, too, declined to give his name.

Secrecy is a new job requirement. Postal workers all across the country have been told by superiors not to discuss their jobs and anxieties with reporters. Lloyd Wilkinson, the Denver postmaster, said, ''We're very protective of our people. We don't want them interviewed.''

Nonetheless, some felt concerned enough to criticize the postal service for not doing enough. Darryl Austin, a postal carrier in Houston since 1990, said one of his colleagues had to buy his own protective gloves because management had not yet acquired them.

''They told us at the station that gloves were on order,'' Mr. Austin said. ''How hard can it be for them to go and buy us some gloves? They've got a budget. Why can't they go out and just get us some gloves?''

Where available, gloves and masks are not mandatory. But some postal workers viewed them as a cynical and insufficient response to the magnitude of an unseen enemy lurking in any given letter or box, even one that might drop into the small post office in Vadnais Heights, Minn., about 15 miles north of St. Paul.

''There isn't much you can do about it,'' said Alan George, a worker there who has chosen not to wear gloves.

''You've just got to carry on with your lives and just hope and pray you don't come in contact with it,'' Mr. George said. ''These people are trying to kill us, and we're defenseless.''

In addition to supplying gloves and mask in some places, postal officials said they were holding more seminars for workers and distributing a poster and videotape to thousands of company mailrooms to educate mail handlers about suspicious items.

Greg Frey, a spokesman for the postal service, said the matter needed to be ''put in perspective.''

That perspective, Mr. Frey said, is that more postal workers die every year from influenza than from anthrax.

THE WARNING

The Government's Message on How to Handle Suspicious Mail

Following is the postcard message being sent to all American households:

A Message From the Postmaster General

The U.S. Postal Service places the highest priority on the safety of our customers and employees and on the security of the mail.

Please see the other side of this card for information about safety and mail handling. We want you to know we are doing everything possible to make sure the mail is safe, and we need your help. Your security and peace of mind are paramount to us.

What should make me suspect a piece of mail?

It's unexpected or from someone you don't know.

It's addressed to someone no longer at your address.

It's handwritten and has no return address or bears one that you can't confirm is legitimate.

It's lopsided or lumpy in appearance.

It's sealed with excessive amounts of tape.

It's marked with restrictive endorsements such as ''Personal'' or ''Confidential.''